


The Magnetism of Being Fractured

by Hannan Ibrahim (poeticsinema)



Category: Sicario (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27501061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poeticsinema/pseuds/Hannan%20Ibrahim
Summary: You don’t see Alejandro live his life. You can't tell apart the ruse between the human and the wolf. But beneath it all - the violence, his rage, and his vengeance, there are parts from his past that still resides within him. In the privacy of his own company, there are parts that he allows himself to recognise.
Relationships: Alejandro Gillick/Original Character(s), Alejandro Gillick/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	1. A favourite meal

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody asked for this but here it is. The National's Slow Show accompanies the narrative of this story.

He didn’t wake up this morning hoping a white shirt would undo the atrocities he’d committed. It was linen, draped over his aging body like a shroud. Death had always been an elusive neighbour. Always looming, lumbering between his periphery, but never inviting him in. 

The street lights create shadows in the wake of his stride. It is in his code to never linger in the same place for too long. He doesn’t have a favourite meal. Nor a preferred place for coffee, or a watering hole to drown in his poison. _He’d be easy to shop for at Christmas._

> _Standing at the punch table, swallowing punch_
> 
> _Can't pay attention to the sound of anyone_

The bell chimes, denoting his entrance. The music decorating the background of the bakery continues in a low timbre. For such a low baritone, it is uncharacteristically upbeat. This place is two blocks from his apartment. He’d come in once, maybe twice, for coffee. He heads to the counter, greeted by a warm smile and a _What can I get you?_

There are eyes that follow him.

He has gotten used to looking over his shoulder. It was Death teasing him, he has come to reconcile. Sometimes in mere hints, but other times elaborate. He’d come close once at coming to greet his enigmatic neighbour. A collection of sand and dust encroaching his lungs, and the beauty of darkness surrounding him. His bones had been shattered beneath his sagging skin. Penance for his deeds.

He remembers banging violently at Death’s door - thumping, begging, _crying_. _Take me in_ , there is a desperation in the howl of this broken man, _there is nothing left for me here_. He weeps, first beneath the cold of the desert winds, and then through its scorching heat - in, and out, and in again into consciousness.

But Death wasn’t kind, nor was he forgiving. Death looks down on the beggar’s worn hands, sees the blood of his wife, his child, and his rage. Fingers, ones that had once held the gentle hands of his daughter’s, that welcomed the loving embrace of his wife - are only stained by the residue of the dead. _Too dark_ , Death said from the other side, _too dirty_.

Consciousness, although unwelcomed, drove him from death’s door to a town, and then the city.Patched up, restored. Back where he came from.

He doesn’t stay in a place for too long, but he returns anyway. Where the dust has collected in the barren apartment. Where the shelves have been decorated with a collection of sorrows - a fresh instalment for the remainder of his nights. He takes his sleep on the leather couch that night - the very one Graver had sat on to unleash the beast. He has never used the bed.

Despite the eyes, he sits in the window that stares out onto the street. Wolves down his cinnamon roll in under a second. The juxtaposition of a killer and his bun. He drowns the sweet that is sticking to his teeth with coffee. Black. No sugar.

The night is suddenly cold when he steps out. The sheen of his wedding band catches the light of the street lamp. He clicks the plastic lighter to warm his worn out soul. Inhales.

The chatter begins to dim as he strolls back to his apartment.

What he’s got is half a wish granted. That even though he is not dead, it has become a fact to the world that he is. Erased. Cleaned. There were people high up in the arrogance of this broken bureaucracy that could validate this. The confirmation of his departure.

Alejandro Gillick does not need a different face. He does not need a different name. A man, once a wolf in the land of wolves is now a ghost. Merely lingering in the periphery of the living.

He takes his sleep on the leather couch again.


	2. Beneath the stoicism

He doesn’t wake from a cold sweat this morning. There is no urgency of his heart pounding through his chest. No cracking of phantom gun shots, like fireworks, in his head. Instead he wakes to the breeze from a window he’d left ajar. _How bold_ , he scoffs at himself, _to think that you are invincible now_.

He strolls over to the window, eyes streaming over the old city. He drinks in the early figures escaping their nests and into watering holes, running, cycling - living. He can’t help but find the tranquility of it all just a little jarring. It almost seems as if the underbelly isn’t churning. As if he wasn’t an agent from the sewers where chaos brews.

Not anymore. 

He pulls the window shut. The apartment becomes claustrophobic. The silence that pierces through these empty passages, the very halls he calls home, becomes deafening. Ghosts dislike the silence. It is like an acid - eats away at you.

The last of his coffee grounds had been used on Graver. Matt doesn’t drink from the mug he offered, he remembers. No, Matt was too cautious for that. Matt was cautious enough to have had stuck a sticky note alerting Alejandro of his arrival. _Don’t fucking shoot me_. Matt has a sense of humour he enjoyed.

His coffee grounds hadn’t been replenished since - like most things in this empty apartment. He reminds himself to do it - has been reminding himself for months now.

Alejandro does not have a favourite meal. But he ends up with a cinnamon roll. The sugar sticks to his teeth. In the same seat with a view of the street becoming busy from the morning.

Running, cycling, living.

Running, cycling, living.

Running, cycling, _living_.

He has wondered often about Kate. The coffee that pools within his cup is black, no sugar. He plays with the gold band around his finger. He wonders if she still smokes Indian Creek, if she still smokes at all. He wonders if her routine had been turned on its head. Just like her morality. 

Funny. There had never been guilt over the countless he has strapped to a seat, stripped off their dignity. No guilt over broken bones, fractured skulls, lacerated lungs. _The difference is that they deserved what was coming for them,_ he convinces himself, _Kate did not._

He wonders if her eyes - cold, magnetic, gray - still possess the same fright for the wolf that has ceased to exist. The crystals that brim, the very ones he wipes away with his gun cocked beneath her chin as he coaxes her arm down, will they still be warm.

_Sign it._

She is no longer his to wonder about.

> _A little more stupid, a little more scared_
> 
> _Every minute, more unprepared_

He drags his chair back. Steps out onto the pavement. Clicks his plastic lighter to warm his worn out soul. Inhales.

There are eyes on him.

He glances back up towards the bakery.


	3. The ferocity of memories

He has his shades drawn over his eyes. The metallic sheen of the frame catching the afternoon sun. It is unusually balmy in this cloudy city today.

_A warm smile,_ and a _, What can I get you?_

_A warm smile,_ and a _, What can I get you?_

_A warm smile,_ and a _, What can I get you?_

When he reaches the front of the line, he discovers that there hadn’t been a need to rehearse what he wants in his head.

“Cinnamon roll. Coffee, black - no sugar.”

She has it prepared - _a warm smile_ , and a, _Here ya go_.

Her voice is honeyed, like the morning. Sticky, like sugar - like blood - dripping in his memory. A meal prepared, ready for him to take to his table - the very one that overlooks the cobbled street. The one where he observes people running, cycling, _living._

There is an order barking at the back of his head, tugging him by the collar, trying to drag him away. Further. _Too close,_ he hears the growl of his own command, _you are not a creature worth knowing_.

But his feet stand rooted. There is a yearning - for the cinnamon roll, rich, sweet, delicate, to wash it down with his coffee, black, no sugar - for the gentle voice, honeyed like the rich, afternoon sun. He collects what has been prepared for him, allows her a nod - gratitude in silence, and moves into his familiar cove. Overlooking the cobbled street.

Running. Cycling.

_Living._

He is like a gravity well. Everything that comes to him gets sucked in. The body of his wife. The terror of his daughter. Kate’s eyes. Isabel’s cries. All thrown - smothered - in the pool of his catastrophe.

> _I made a mistake in my life today_
> 
> _Everything I love gets lost in the drawers_

“You like this song.” His voice startles her.

She looks up from wiping down the table next to his.

The whirl of the ceiling fan becomes distant. The chatter of this worn down bakery drowns out. The clanking of plates, of metal, of glass suddenly silent. Suddenly it feels too humid. Suddenly it feels claustrophobic.

She blinks. She has dark eyes.

The noise returns.

“Y-yes?” It is unintentional that her response comes out as a question.

She doesn’t know where to put her hands, nor where to avert her eyes. There is something about looking at the man before her - she has memorised the deep hazel that caves beneath his heavy brow bone, learned the lines beneath his tired eyes. Something like steel. Unwavering.

There is amusement that plays on his lips. His gaze drops to the rim of his coffee cup, tracing a gentle thumb across the dark stain the brew has created, “I hear it every time I’m here.”

Her eyes fall onto the ring around his finger.

She nods, “The National.”

His brows furrow. They are thick, untrimmed - _like the fur of a wolf_ , she notes.

“The band.”

Alejandro nods, “Never heard.”

He allows a small smile to play on the edges of his lips, then turns his attention back to observing the streets.

He has eyes on him.


	4. Dissect and arrest

It is in his code to never linger in the same place for too long.

He doesn’t have a favourite meal.

Nor a preferred place for coffee.

_You’re here again,_ the voice echoes at the back of his head. He has come to terms with his inability to drown it out. Perhaps it’s his subconscious missing taking orders from Graver.

“They’ve just released a new record, ye know.”

She tells him, in her voice, honeyed like the night - like sugar, and cinnamon, like cream in thisominous humidity. It is late when he comes in - when the bell chimes, and all that is left on the trays are stale bread. The patrons, once littering the tables like he’s used to early in the morning - their company encasing his existence - have retired for the night.

Only he remains. With a cinnamon roll. Coffee, black - no sugar.

And her.

“Do you enjoy their new record?” He asks.

She is over the counter now, wiping down the surface with a disinfectant. Her shoulders roll as she stretches to reach a corner. A wild curl tumbles forward, distracts her vision for a second before she wipes it back behind her ear.

“Hmm,” She considers for a moment, paints her gaze on him again, “It’ll probably need a couple more listens.”

He nods. Eyes dropping down onto the rim of his coffee cup, then to the gold band that encircles his finger.

She has an aloofness about his presence that makes him envious of her. If she only knew the terror he has inflicted by as little as a gaze. But here she was. For every day he is in here - a warm smile, and her honeyed voice - knowing by heart how he likes his coffee, how he accompanies it with a cinnamon bun, and how he stays within himself in his own company, to be distracted only by the same song he has come to regard as theirs.

There is an intimacy there that he hasn’t shared with anyone in a long time.

“I don’t mean to chase you out,” She speaks from behind him, still over the counter.

His gaze averts from the dimly lit streets, over to her when she treads across the concrete. She has a doggy bag with her, hands it to him.

“What’s this?” His tone is unintentionally wary.

“Ground coffee.”

She explains that Santiago - her help behind the counter that takes off before closing - had grounded an excess this morning. There is something in her tone that suggests this was an excuse.

“And there’s a baguette too.” His grin is teasing as he looks up from examining the contents of the manilla bag.

“The cinnamon roll’s gonna kill you one of these days.”

He laughs - with no bitterness, no sarcasm, unlike how he laughs at one of Graver’s jokes.

_Already dead_.

“Pop it in the toaster in the morning, it goes well with blueberry jam.”

His daughter loved blueberry jam. He smiles.

> _I want to start over, I want to be winning_
> 
> _Way out of sync from the beginning_

She cuts the music right before it reaches the chorus he has come to memorise. She is somewhere in the back, somewhere out of his periphery. He takes it as cue for his departure.

“Thank you.” He calls.

The bell chimes.

The door shuts.

Alejandro doesn’t allow her the chance to see him off.

Unlike how Kate had seen him off with trembling fingers short of pulling the trigger. Unlike how Isabel - _Carina_ \- had seen him off with eyes glossed over at the loss of hope. Unlike the gentle, sweet kiss of his wife, and embrace of his daughter that had seen him off before he returned to their bodies, defiled.

There are eyes on him, but his feet has already taken him onto the cobbled streets, crossing over to the other side.


	5. Songs that become broken when we are broken

There is a break in his routine.

No cinnamon roll. No coffee, black - no sugar.

He has stocked up his fridge, though. There is butter. Lager. Stale bread.

Blueberry jam.

But he finds himself humming to the chorus of the song she enjoys. _You don’t even know her name_ , his insides mock _._ He thinks he is matching the baritone of its singer. Matching its rhythm. Matching a scene in his head of a lonely man, in a lonely kitchen, stale bread in the toaster and blueberry jam as company.

> _I wanna hurry home to you_
> 
> _Put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up_

Does it render him weak to crave to come home, he wonders. To have some sort of certainty. Develop a taste for a favourite meal. A good place for coffee. Be able to remember the tune of a song stuck in his head.

For a long time, Alejandro Gillick, a man painted by his anguish, deserved none of these things. No semblance of normalcy. No cradle for comfort. Nothing, before he extinguishes the burning of hisraging fury.

Multiple bullets buried with Alarcon. A couple more, he is sure, has been buried with Reyes.

The thirst of his vengeance only unfurls, he realises, but will never be quenched.

So when he gets into a routine - cinnamon roll, coffee, black - no sugar. People running, cycling, _living -_ he finds his rage quietly dissipate.

It doesn’t disappear - never as a whole. Only muted, much like the song she enjoys in the middle of a bustling bakery, for every day that it plays quiet in the background - memorised.

But it is her voice - sweet, sticky, thick as honey - that melts through the agony of his memories.

His toaster _dings_ , the stale bread is ready. His jam is on the table. He spreads it, for a moment losing himself to the voice of a good man preparing breakfast for his daughter - the voice that informs his wife that he has to travel for a little while, “ _Two, maybe three nights in Bogota._ ”

She smiles. Like honey. Like wine. “ _Just come home to me,_ ” She says, and he knows she is being kind, “ _Come home to us._ ” She kisses the dent in the middle of his lips, wipes a gentle finger over it.

He isn’t sure if he’d conjured that memory just so it could provide a semblance of comfort.

The futility of aching to have someone who wants to come home to him.

//

There are eyes on him.

He clicks the plastic lighter twice, finding a flame to warm his worn out soul. It is late again, just like the last time. Only now, it is intentional.

Inhale.

The bell chimes.

She looks up, smiles, acts as if she hadn’t seen him through the window that stares out into the cobbled street. Approaches him with apprehension, “I thought I’d scare you off.”

He shakes his head, chuckles warmly, much like the good man preparing breakfast for his daughter.

Her voice is sweet, and thick, and honey to his night.

“It’ll take a lot more to scare me.”


	6. A dimension beyond his silences

Alejandro allows her to grow into him. Into his spaces. Into the empty crevasse of his worn out heart, and of his aching mind. He allows her to take root. Place her thoughts, her interests, her love - all amassed in his chest. A little at a time.

She is kind to him. Puts up with his evasiveness - sometimes unintentional, other times out of necessity. Touches him the way he yearns to be touched. Accompanies him the way he yearns for company. Exist in tandem for as long as he allows her to.

He sees it in her dark eyes - she knows that there is no permanence to him.

Once, when she had welcomed him into her kitchen, where he observes that she is truly at home surrounded by her appliances and away from the brimming crowd, she tells him about her love for the craft of making bread.

“The dough takes on a life of its own, it has its own way of reacting - sometimes massive, sometimes unhinged,” She describes, “It’s almost like taming a beast.”

> _So you can put a blue ribbon on my brain_
> 
> _God, I'm very, very frightened, I'll overdo it_

“There are things about me I need to tell you.”

He had bought a bottle of her favourite red that night. Welcomed her into his space, now more lived in. A record player to the side, a copy of a vinyl by The National - hers, one that spun the very song he has now long regarded as theirs. The shelves, once empty and only storing terrors, have been uncharacteristically replaced with science fiction - replicating, almost, the life he is leading now.

On the bedside table, next to the bed he has finally rested in, his ring.

He has eyes on him.

She doesn’t ask him, _What is it?_

Instead she settles into the leather sofa, to the left of where Graver had once sat, and taps for him to come to her. She doesn’t hold her breath. She doesn’t flinch.

Alejandro has known her for a while now, but he has never found himself stuttering.

He tells her first about his wife. Then his daughter. There are things about Mexico that he ghosts over - like Kate, he is bound beneath the secrecy of a broken bureaucracy. He dismantles the pieces kept on his shelves - the ones he can still tell - one by broken one. Tells her that he is built from atrocities. A gravitational whirlpool of death, a wolf amongst wolves.

But now a ghost.

Alejandro Gillick, hardened by the ways of the world around him is morally bankrupt - there are no longer tears that can absolve him. So when his story ends, when he closes his chapter, all he does is stare at her. And she stares back.

She doesn’t realise the breath she has been holding on to. Doesn’t flinch, until he reaches out and ghosts a touch above her fingers.

He suddenly becomes hyper aware of the way she is looking at him.

His apartment reverts to a ghost of its past.

Dark eyes. Stuffy air. Claustrophobia.

“I’m sorry.”

He almost doesn’t know what he’s apologising for. Almost doesn’t know if she still recognises the man that sits before her. The one she has fed with her own two hands, the order of coffee she has memorised, the worn out soul that she has allowed to ghost over her.

But she reaches out, grazes her thumb over the scar of where the exit wound would have been. She kisses over the dent in the middle of his lips, wipes a gentle finger over it.

She doesn’t stay with him that night. Excuses herself for home, for him to allow her to digest the tragedy that had become him - the blood that his fingers had come to know so well, try to make sense of the anguish,the pain, and the terror that he carries inside him.

There is no permanence for Alejandro Gillick. 


	7. The end of the world

“The dough takes on a life of its own, it has its own way of reacting - sometimes massive, sometimes unhinged. It’s almost like taming a beast.”

Running. Cycling. Living.

Cinnamon roll. Coffee, black - no sugar.

Plastic lighter. Warming up his worn out soul.

Inhale.

He no longer has eyes on him.

The ring, the one he had worn for years after his wife had turned to ashes, sits inside the drawer of his bedside table. The window of this lived in apartment remains ajar. It collects the noise of people escaping their nests - into watering holes to start their mornings; running, cycling, living.

He no longer concerns himself with the churning underbelly of the city.

No longer an agent of its sewers.

He wipes the sleep from his eyes, rises.

> _You know I dreamed about you_
> 
> _For twenty-nine years before I saw you_

There is fresh bread on the kitchen table. Coffee, black - still piping.

He now has a tacky mug, no longer takeaway cups, that has an _A_ sprawled across it.

There is blueberry jam in the fridge. 

He didn’t wake up this morning hoping a white shirt would undo the atrocities he’d committed. It is linen, and he asks her that morning, before she departs for the bakery, why she wanted to spend her waking days and her nights asleep next to an old, fractured man.

> _You know I dreamed about you_
> 
> _I missed you for, for twenty-nine years_

She tells him he is the only person she wants to come home to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were multiple versions of the ending in my head, but I wanted Alejandro to be wordlessly happy. Anyway, until I have another mental breakdown.


End file.
